Stainless Steel
by SweetG
Summary: -Kurt/Blaine- ...The text comes from someone called Rachel. It's well written, spelled carefully, full words, and properly used punctuation marks. It says: 'You should call Kurt's father. Something's happened. Try to do it as soon as possible'.
1. Chapter 1

Made of steel. Eventually people come to notice that Kart is.

Made. Of Steel.

Blaine takes it in stride, even if at first it hits him like a ceiling falling free. He never thought about strength of character, he didn't need it. He never thought about violence, about sex in the worst light, about telling another human being that their life meant nothing.

He's been insulted, been called gay in countless different ways, been sneered at, been ostracized.

But nobody ever _hit_ him. He's never been _beaten up_ for something he honestly can't help, he's never been seriously injured. No one has ever threatened him, or anything of the sort.

He can't help but think, subconsciously, that those things don't happen in real life.

But they do. And sometimes strenght of character isn't enough to make it through unscathed.

The text comes from someone called Rachel. It's well written, spelled carefully, full words, and properly used punctuation marks. It says: _You should call Kurt's father. Something's happened. Try to do it as soon as possible._

His heart rate speeds up and his palms start sweating as he answers the text by asking for Burt's phone number.

He calls. Three times. When the gruff voice that he's come to identify with Burt Hummel (finally) answers with a vacant _yes_ he knows that something's wrong. That something undoubtedly bad's happened to Kurt.

"Excuse me Mr. Hummel, my name is Blaine, I'm a friend of Kurt's and I got a message from somebody called Rachel..."

"Kurt is in a coma."

And that's it. The last thing he hears from Burt before Carole (Kurt's almost step mother?) takes the phone and starts explaining the situation to him.

Apparently after he sent that _courage_ text to Kurt, he stepped up to Karofsky-the-bully, who –after an impressive face off- kissed him against his will. And after Kurt managed to push him away, the boy lost it and shoved Kurt against a row of lockers. Quite hard. And after that, Kurt slipped and banged his head against a bench's edge.

At least, that's what he manages to grab from Carole's rushed speech. There are also terms like blood loss, and brain swelling, and acronyms like TBI being thrown around, but he feels like he can barely grasp those concepts.

He can only think _how?_ and _why?_ and _what?_

The next day he drives all the way to Lima, breaking speed laws right, left, and center, and not caring in the slightest.

He does get to the hospital, but never gets to the front doors.

When he's parking his car, a somewhat dark skinned guy with a... a mohawk? comes out of nowhere and steps in front of him. He steps on the brakes and only just avoids running him over. He kills the engine and gets out quickly, moving closer to the mohawked teen, who looks at him with a tight jaw and cold eyes.

"Excuse me, are you alright?"

"Are you Blaine Anderson?"

The sneer on those lips make him realize that this boy –man- right here is Noah Puckerman, _the_ Noah Puckerman. And he really isn't afraid, but something wet and freezing and unsettling coats his head like soaked cotton balls. He's worried.

"_Are you Blaine Anderson?_" The guy asks again, butchering half the words and cracking his fingers in a menacing fashion.

He opens his mouth to answer, when somebody comes between them. He recognizes the uniform as one of the William McKinley's cheerleading squad's, and then he looks at her face and her identity is clear, even though he's only ever seen her on a few pictures that Kurt's shown him of some of his friends.

_Santana Lopez_.

She is a whirlwind of ebony hair, perfect cheeks, a deep scowl, and eyes that make him want to hide for a year or two, or at least until she's found another person to lock her heated gaze on.

Her hand comes against Puck's chest and he can see that she's using _force_ to mantain him still, her other hand however, grabs his collar and pulls him close enough to her face that he can see himself on her narrowed eyes.

"_You,_" She starts, with venom and barely concealed animosity. "fuck _off._ Fuck _off_ to your little gay school and _don't_ come back unless you want me to cut your head off and feed it to my dogs. You fucking heard me, bitch?"

And just like that she's walking away, dragging a furious Puckerman with her, and he can listen to a _I'm not letting yourself get locked up again, Puckerman. Shut up, okay?_

He watches their backs for a few seconds and then leaves, not because of fear, but because he can respect the hurt he's seen underneath all this bizarre excuse of an exchange.

(That and because of the slow understanding that somehow, Kurt's friends seem to think that he's responsible for all this, and _that_ knowledge? That knowledge _hurts_, because he likes Kurt too much, and he never saw this coming, and he knows he isn't, but he _does_ feel responsible to some extent for hugely underestimating the situation, _and_...)

The day after that, he meets Brittany Pierce, Kurt's famous ex-girlfiend.

The blonde girl dances her way through one of Dalton's deserted hallways and tells him –in this soft, _gone_ voice that manages to scare him in a way that that Santana girl couldn't- _i really, really, really hate you._ She says that with a blinding smile, while she rubs one of his arms in an absent gesture. _but you're cute, and he likes you, so i'll try to forgive you_.

After that, she's gone. Her long hair floats around her as she walks, giving her this incredibly dignified air, and her hips sway to the beats of a song that he hasn't ever heard.

And how, just _how,_ did she manage to get inside without anyone noticing her?

Finn Hudson just calls him to his cell phone and asks him politely to never even dream of coming near his brother again.

Okay, maybe it wasn't _polite_. Maybe it was more of a _you ever even look at him again, I fucking kick your ass, dude_ sort of deal. But still.

It has been the less threatening reaction to his person as to this moment.

Until he actually _sees_ Finn Hudson on the hospital one morning.

It hadn't ever crossed his mind until that point that the guy was not related in blood to Kurt, and thus, he wasn't very likely to be anything _like_ him. He doesn't _know_ why he didn't think of it, because Finn is kind of... kind of _huge_. A six feet _everything_ monster of a boy.

And a _pissed_ one, too.

When Finn catches sight of him –face going from blank to livid in a matter of seconds- he stands up violently and starts striding up to him, fists tight at his sides and bared teeth and pure hatred on his face.

"_You_." He starts lifting his right arm and Blaine just closes his eyes, wating for the sickening pain of that enormous hand breaking his nose, or jaw, or something. He _expects_ it, and maybe even _wants_ it. But it never comes.

Slowly, he opens his eyes and finds Finn frozen in front of him, eyes narrowed and wet. And behind him he finds Mercedes, her soft and warm hand placed on one of Hudson's broad shoulders.

She looks tired, she looks sad, she looks haggard and disarmed and Blaine wants to hold her; she looks at _him_ and her lips tauten into a thin line.

"Stop." She sounds even worse than she looks and he feels _guilty_ even though nothing about this situation could possibly be held against him (he tries to remind himself of that every so often, to avoid going a little crazy). He feels guilty because Mercedes should never sound like this, she should always sound like he's heard her on Kurt's end of the phone (bright, secure, warm, filled with kindness, and a neverending source of beautiful music)."Stop, Finn. You can't blame this on him. It's not fair, boy."

And Finn lowers his arm, still looking at him with naked aversion. He opens his hand and closes it again, twice or three times, in quick succession; he can see white discolorations and pink blotches everywhere, from the pressure, and he's hit by the certain knowledge that Finn would've done more than break his nose if Mercedes hadn't been there to deter him.

"Look, man." Finn's voice is contrite, Blaine can see the lines near his mouth, he's barely controled, but he's trying, and that's more than Blaine thinks _he_ would be able to do if he were in Finn's shoes. "I know this is not your fault or whatever, but _Kurt_? Kurt is my _brother_. He is. And now he's in a, in a..."

Finn breaks down a bit, tears falling free. He looks like a parody, such a giant person looking so defenseless. He doesn't say the word _coma_ and Blaine doesn't know if it is because he doesn't want to acquiesce the situation, or if he just forgot the correct jargon.

But in the end, it doesn't matter. The sight of that kid, hunched over and _bawling_ brings the weight of reality to him. Kurt is in a _coma_. _Karofsky_ put _Kurt_ in a _coma_. And it could have been easily avoided, if he hadn't told Kurt to stand up to that guy, in an attempt to get himself on Kurt's good graces.

"I'm sorry. I'm really sorry. I never thought... I... I am terribly sorry." He can't recognize the noises he's making, they sound distorted, bland, too low, too shaky. Is that his voice? "I'm sorry. I'm _sorry_."

Finn looks at him, shocked. He imagines what they must look like to an outsider, the both of them crying and standing in the middle of this sickeningly white hall of the Lima General Hospital.

(They must look exactly like what they are, two mourning teenagers who've recently discovered that life is not a given, life can end abruptly, or not. But still, it can be taken away from you, from those you love. Life is a fleeting affair.)

They stay there for an hour, perhaps. Mercedes, too. They never sit down, or go near Kurt's room (Kurt's father and Finn's mother are there, he knows. He knows that they've probably been there all week, now), they don't talk anymore, they almost don't even stare at one another. They just coexist in the same grief and hopes.


	2. Chapter 2

He thinks_ wake up_. All the time. (And maybe, before, he'd been the one who had needed to do so.)

He goes to school and tries to concentrate on dull classes and subjects and professors; he tries to listen to fellow classmates, tries to act normal, tries to be the same person he had been before Kurt happened, he tries to laugh with Wes and David, tries to sing like he means it (tries to kill the extensive list of thoughts that enunciate i_t's not worth it_, and _i don't want to_, and _please, this is ridiculous, just shut up_. Tries to put emotions behind lyrics that he'd enjoyed in the past).

Tries to. And is painfully unsuccessful.

He spends as much time in the hospital as he can, now that Finn isn't actively trying to kill him on sight.

It is dumb, but he feels like an outsider.

Things that don't have anything to do with him keep unraveling before his eyes. Liike a summer night's light drizzle, these things just keep _coming and coming_; and, yes, _falling and falling_.

These _people_ keep _coming and coming_, and breaking down or not, but always in an intimate fashion that makes him feel inadequate and missplaced.  
(He stays, anyhow. Because he's never been particularly valiant or selfless, but this time he wants to be. He wants to be here and wait for Kurt. He wants to be here _when_ –not_ if_, never_ if_- Kurt wakes up.)

Visiting hours are an uneven procession of unlikely characters. He's seen that crazy Sylvester Coach once or twice, sitting silently next to Kurt's bed, and looking at him with an intensity that could've bored holes on inanimate objects or lesser men. Those times, she had looked mad (in all due senses of the word), but she'd also looked distressed. Worried. Sad. He had seen her clutching Kurt's hand for a few seconds before leaving, the last time he'd seen her there.

He's also seen the famous Mr. Schuester. He never stays for long and never goes inside Kurt's room. He watches him from the door's threshold for a few minutes, and then he goes to talk to Burt or Carole, or sometimes Finn. Blaine can't help but think that the man believes that if he doesn't have to sit there and watch Kurt's motionless form from so close, it will all turn out to be a dream, or something.

He's also seen a immeasurable cloud of Cheerios (that's McKinley High's cheerleading squad's name, Mercedes' told him), invariably preceded by Santana (who mostly ignores him) and Brittany, who are always the only ones who get to go inside Kurt's room. The other ones sit on the floor, on both sides of the door, with legs crossed, and wait. Some of them look terrible –pale and too thin, skin suffering from slight traces of dehydration-, some of them look angry, some of them look confused.

When Brittany and Santana step out of Kurt's room they all stand up in frightful unison.

He can hear their collective "Is he... ?" And then he sees the way Brittany's eyes go misty and dissotute, and Santana shakes her head no and starts walking with her hand tightly wrapped around the blonde girl's one.

The Cheerios follow, subdued and demure, every single time.

The one who tells him the most about Kurt's current medical condition is a worn out looking Tina Cohen-Chang. He'd known it was her instantaneously, from what Mercedes had been telling him about all the glee kids on those odd days when it was only the two of them waiting for Kurt to _wake up_.

One day she just sits next to him, with both hands carefully intertwined, and looks at the white, white wall in front of her as if it held the most important secrets of life (_how do we get him back?_). She opens her mouth abruptly once or twice, then closing it slowly. On the third try, however, she talks.

"He's unresponsive." She sounds hollow, and Blaine thinks that he's never ever been more afraid of someone's impassive nature; he's always rejoiced in the company of people like that, collected and poised, always in check. Now he wishes everyone could be a mixture of explosive emotions. A mixture of hope and love and _pain_. Because he can't be dispassionate or composed, now. He just _can't_. He doesn't have it in him.

Tina carries on, level headed, not moving an inch from her position, her eyes lifeless.

"Totally unresponsive. He doesn't make a sound. He doesn't open or even flicker his eyes, he doesn't make a single movement. His brain activity isn't declining, but it also isn't increasing." She stops, looks at her hands for a while –untangling her fingers and tangling them on the soft fabric of the simple black dress she's wearing-, then continues. "The doctors check on him constantly to prevent infections, and the nurses move him every three hours or so to avoid things like _atelectasis_. He's not closer to being here than he was yesterday, or the day before."

She stands up, suddenly, and looks at him.

"I thought you needed to know." She says.

And then she's leaving, her slow steps making more noise than he's heard on the last few hours.

(Mercedes tells him that same day that everyone is afraid that Tina's going to be the first one to fall apart. That she's locked herself inside her own mind, that she's rigid and unrelenting to everyone's attempts to help her.)

Artie Abrams comes twice a week. The first time he sees him coming over, the boy in the wheelchair locks eyes with him and after a few seconds of just speechlessly staring at each other, he offers a half smile that doesn't look all that inviting, but doesn't look all that fake. It looks beaten up, watered down, drained and raw. But_ there_, genuine.

Artie says, "So you're welcome here now, bro. Awesome, Kurt would like to see you when he wakes up."

He is a logical person, almost mathematically put together, but whenever he goes to Kurt's room he can see him fumbling a bit, as if he didn't know what he was supposed to do in this situation. He looks childish and stripped down from all ratiocination .

Sam blond and more than a bit dumb. But from what little he's heard from Finn and Mercedes, he's got a golden heart. And from what he can gather on his own, he's been going to see Kurt every single day. He only gets to be with him for a brief ten or fifteen minutes, every time, but he still goes. He goes and Blaine can see through the door's window that he _talks_ to Kurt. That he spends the whole time he's allowed inside that room talking, energetic and bright, and looking at Kurt's unchanging face with manic happiness. Sam talks, and talks, and _talks._ Blaine can't help but think that it's all in the hopes of helping to bring Kurt back.

When Sam leaves, the sweet demeanour slips, the smiles fade, the brightness burns out; whoever walks away from the room after those fifteen minutes, is just a carcass. A rotten corpse of whatever the original person held at first.

Sam goes in; a faded out carbon copy walks away, blank and perfunctory.

Everytime Puckerman visits, Mercedes kindly and politely asks him to leave for awhile, which must probably mean that the guy still wants to beat him to a bloody pulp for this. He doesn't ask, however, and Mercedes doesn't provide an explanation on her own.

He goes away for an hour or so. He doesn't know why, but Puck's always allowed to stay longer than the rest of the New Directions' kids.

Quinn Fabray only visited once. She spent the whole time clutching her stomach, shaking violently, and crying her pretty eyes out.

She sat next to Kurt and rambled at him in stuttered words that he was not allowed to leave them, to leave Mercedes and his dad, and Finn, and _her_. That she was going to hunt his little ass –the word sounding weird and brand new in her lips- if he pulled a selfish move and _died_ on them, and that she was going to make Rachel sing at him in her highest register every day if he didn't wake up soon.

(Rachel Berry is almost always with Finn, always talking about music. She hardly ever goes to Kurt's room to see him, and when she does, she sits there in a feeble silence –teetering over an invisible verge-.)

A whole month goes by before anyone tells him about whatever's happened to Karofsky. Something that he's been trying very hard not to think about, because every time he slips and does think about it he feels a burning swell of anger that leaves him unstable for a few hours, blinding rage constricting his ribcage and making him sweat profusely.

Needless to say, the facts come from an unlikely source (although he hasn't been openly disagreeable since that time when Mercedes stopped his try at killing him, Finn still won't talk to him if it isn't strictly necessary; Burt and Carole don't talk much to anyone but Finn, Mercedes and Schuester –though they try to look as courteous as they can-, and Mercedes seems to want to talk about_ that_ as much as Blaine himself).

Mike Chang is tall, angular, and sort of generic looking; he's also on the football team, but he's way nicer than any other jock Blaine's ever met. His visits aren't that frecuent, but when he does visit he stays for hours, dividing his time equally between Kurt, Finn, Mercedes, and Blaine himself. He tells jokes and tries to lighten the mood, with varying degrees of success.

One time, however, he throws an atomic bomb of a question to Blaine: "Has anyone told you what happened that day?"

He's answering before realizing it.

"Carole did, but there are things that I think she may have not told me, and there are things I don't understand."

Mike nods.

"I see. Okay, let's go get a coffee."

It turns out that after it all went down between Kurt and Karofsky, it was Puckerman who found them. Kurt had already been unconscious by then, and Karofsky had been freaking out, holding the bleeding boy in his arms, trying to stop the hemorrhage with his bare hands.

Puckerman didn't even _need_ to beat the jock up to obtain an admission, David had been so scared and regretful that he'd confessed to everything in excruciating detail, while Noah called the 911 and Mr. Schuester, who went on the ambulance with a comatose Kurt; after that, he'd called the police and stayed there with Karofsky.

"Did he...?"

"A little, yes. A fist or two, but Karofsky never fought back and just took it. Puck just got even angrier; I think there are still dents on the lockers, and nobody's even tried to fix the windows or the door. It's a fucking miracle that nobody saw fit to tell his parole officer. Well, maybe Figgins grew a fucking brain and saw that he couldn't do that to a guy in Puck's position."

He lets all that to sink in (he hadn't liked Puckerman before –and he knew that the feeling was mutual at best-, but now he felt a strange surge of respect and gratitude, for the way in which he had handled everything), and then asks the one question whose answer could either give him at least a little peace or break him entirely.

"What's going to happen to Karofsky now?"

"Burt pressed charges, for this and for all the previous harrassment. All together, this qualifies as a felony, so he'll probably get some serious time in a cell. The trial is going to be in a week or two, I don't have many details about that. I do know it won't be public."

And that's it. It should feel good, Blaine should feel that that's enough, but it doesn't, and he doesn't, and his life is still the same after hearing what Mike had to say.

So one day he's too desperate; too desperate, and pretty sure that he's going to collapse and never wake up –maybe his parents could arrange for him to be put next to Kurt's bed, then-, and does something really stupid.

He looks everywhere for Karofsky's phone number and calls just to tell him -bitter, sadistic, dark- _I hope you know that he could never be okay again, he could never wake up again. I hope you know. _

(Karofsky is silent for a few seconds and then says -quiet and grievous, to Blaine's surprise- _I know_. None of them talk for a few seconds, then Karofsky chokes out something that could've been a sob. He hangs up on Blaine.)

It's on the fifth week mark when the small miracle happens. He isn't there, because it is one of Puckerman's days.

He gets a call from Mercedes. She sounds weird, high-pitched and wild, a bit unintelligible.

"Blaine,_ Blaine_, come here. Drag your ass here, now. _Now_, boy."

Kurt has woken up for a few seconds.

When he gets there, there's at least a dozen people strewn everywhere. Sitting on chairs, lounging next to the door, just standing on the hall. He can see tears, and hear strangled laughing, and he is infected by the general feeling of sheer joy; he can feel arms pulling him into a powerful hug as soon as he's within the loud mess of ecstatic people.

He can smell Mercedes' perfume -strong and frutal- and he can hear her voice, roughed up, whispering _it's over; it's over, it's over, and he's going to be okay! my boo's going to be damn fine! _

And suddenly he's laughing, hugging her back as fiercely as he dares to, and saying _hell, yes. he's going to be fine._

It's not like in the movies. In the movies the characters wake up from the coma magically and just carry on with their lives as they were before. It doesn't happen like that. In real life waking up from a coma is gradual, drawn out, it takes a lot more time than everyone seems to think. There's brain activity that increases slowly, and there are billions of things that could go wrong, and there's doctors all the time, doing things to make sure that everything will, indeed, turn up okay.

At first, Kurt only opens his eyes for a few seconds every two or three hours. The next day, he starts trying to move his fingers, under Burt's and Carole's and Finn's and Mercedes' and –yes- his devoted, glassy eyes.

The day after that he starts trying to mumble things. The doctors come and go, and finally they're told that there's no permanent brain damage, and that Kurt's body is fine.

The one after that is one of the few in which he isn't there but Mercedes calls him and tells him that Kurt focused his eyes on Burt's and said –voice raspy with lack of use- _hi, dad._

Blaine cries. After that, he calls Wes and David and they go out to buy a few ilegal drinks. He normally isn't one for getting wasted, but he's so _fucking happy _that he wants to get drunk and dance on top of a table or two.

...What he really wants to do, in all honesty, is to visit Kurt and hold his hand and tell him to never even think about doing something like that again. Also, he wants to tell him _we get bigger, we get better, smiles and dimples, and beauty. I think I've loved you since the moment I've laid eyes on you, I think I've been yours since even before, I think I've been born with your touch branding my soul. I think I need you, I think this is it. I think you are it. _

And, yes, probably kiss him senseless. Because he may have decided to take this slowly before, but now he just wants Kurt to know that he's silly, and very much in love, and that he has been since the first time they crossed paths.

...But that can wait for a few days, or at least until Kurt can hold a lucid conversation again, he's still that much of a gentleman. 


End file.
